CIT 591 Assignment 11: Kaleidoscope
Fall 2005, David Matuszek

Purposes of this assignment:

General idea of the assignment:

A kaleidoscope is a cardboard tube you look through, often at some colored crystals, and it shows you changing colored patterns, with sixfold symmetry. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleidoscope.) You're going to do the same in an applet, only (because it's a lot easier) with eightfold symmetry. That is, there will be eight copies of every visible object, in different orientations.

Details:

The math

Imagine, for the moment, that you have an applet with the origin in the center; that is, the center is (0,0).

We will place an object (the letters "ABC") in this applet, and show the various reflections that are possible.
You can reflect the object around the X-axis. Do this by changing the sign of all Y values. That is, each point (X,Y) becomes (X,-Y).
You can reflect the object around the Y-axis. Do this by changing the sign of all X values. That is, each point (X,Y) becomes (-X,Y).
You can reflect the object around the main diagonal. Do this by changing each (X,Y) point into (-Y,-X).
You can reflect the object around the secondary diagonal. You can do this by changing each (X,Y) point into (Y,X).

Some combinations of reflections are the same as other combinations of reflections; there are eight possibilities in all. Thus, if the origin were at the center, you would have, for each (X, Y) point, the following:

(X,Y)   (-X,Y)   (X,-Y)   (-X,-Y)   (Y,X)   (-Y,X)   (Y,-X)   (-Y,-X)

Since the origin of any Java drawing area is not at the center, but is at the top left corner instead, you will have to make some adjustments to these. The exact values will depend on the width and height of your applet window. Don't use magic numbers--ask the applet for its height and width. (You can assume that the size of the applet never changes during execution.)

Most of the figures that you draw with java.awt.Graphics methods have a width and a height as well as an x and y starting position. For some reflections, these will have to be interchanged.

Remember the DRY principle. You should be able to come up with a method or methods that you can use for any figures; this will make it easy if you decide to add a bunch more figures to your display.

The GUI

Write an applet to show an animated kaleidoscope. Have somewhere between three and ten figures that you draw on the screen (use Graphics.drawPolygon for at least one of them). Each of these "main" figures should be allowed to move anywhere in the window, so that often it will overlap or cross some of its reflections. Figures will "bounce" off the walls (like the "Bouncing Ball" applet), but it is OK if they sometimes go partly outside the walls--Java will "clip" the image to fit the applet. Each figure should move at a different speed.

Have buttons to start and stop the animation. In addition, have some controls so that the user can interact with the animation to at least a small extent. Some of the things you might want to control are: Speed. Colors. Number of figures. Number of reflections. Randomness of movements. Clearing and restarting. It doesn't really matter much what you do, but do something so that the user has some control; it's more interesting that way.

Grading:

This is an individual assignment--you will not have a partner. Turn in your own work.

You are welcome (and encouraged) to discuss the project with other students, and to give and receive help as needed. Do not, however, lend anyone your code, or ask to borrow anyone else's code, or work together with anyone to write code. Program this one by yourself.

You can use my Bouncing Ball Applet as a starting point. Sorry about the lack of comments!

Due date:

Friday, December 9, by midnight. Late programs (up to a week) will be accepted with the usual 5 points/day penalty. Zip your project up and turn it in via Blackboard, as usual; don't forget to include your HTML file.